students

so there are a few funny things about teaching.  I just gave an exam this past week and there were some short answer questions.  One of the students drew me a picture of a ninja and wrote: "this is a ninja holding nunchucks, fighting off your red pen from marking this question wrong.  Proceed with caution.  Ninjas are an example of a counterculture."

I almost gave him like .05 points for creativity.  but then the questions was not about countercultures, and ninjas are likely a subculture and not a countercultre anyways, so I decided against the .05 points.  So close.  So close.

grading

When I was an undergrad, I remember thinking that papers were very helpful.  They force you to sit down and think through a topic in more depth than you would if you only took an exam or something like that.  So now that I am teaching, I think that papers are important for a number of reasons.  I now wish I had different opinions about assigning papers to students.  I really, really don't like reading massive stacks of papers.

Below is me happily holding all of the papers I graded this past semester.  Except for the small stack I found on a different desk (totally thought I lost like 40 or 50 final papers... that would have been unfortunate).  This is also minus the graded papers that students actually came to pick up.  I felt I needed to document this.

Deviant introduction

So I am a co-teacher of sorts for an introduction to sociology class. We were just going over social norms (expectations we are socialized into) and sanctions (informal and automatic things we do to keep each other in line). As an assignment, they all had to go and observe some norm, like actually waiting in lines at the store, and then violate the norm. Some of them are super creative. Here are some good ones (maybe more later, I am like half-way through 220 or something papers):

- One kid put on flippers, wet suit, goggles, and a snorkel and then went swimming in a fountain on campus. When asked what he was doing he told people he was training to be a Navy SEAL, but didn't know how to swim and was scared of the water and the fountain seemed like a safe place to start.

- Another went to the store and tasted different toothpastes, commented on the flavor, and put the rejects back in the box on the shelf. Some lady kindly (kind of) told her that shouldn't happen. (she did buy all of them anyways)

- Another went to the Wendy's drive through and when prompted to 'order when ready' wrote down her order and drove to the window to hand it to the person.

- Another went to the grocery store and picked up items, telling others why they should buy them, and put them in their carts for them.

- Another came up to kids listening to music, took the ear-bud out of the person's ear and put it in their own to listen to the music. After a few seconds put it back in the other person's and walked away.

- Another went up to random people at the coffee shop and asked if they could have some of the random person's coffee. Another sat down by random people in the movie theater and 'shared' that person's popcorn with them.

There are a ton more. Maybe i'll put more up later.

My standardized tests

Measuring what, if anything, students have learned is rough. Almost painful even. There is really no win for the teacher. If you have them write papers, you have to read them. If you do short answer exams you have to read them and decide whether or not their fringe answer is close enough. If you do multiple choice/scantron exams you have to write the questions – which is worse than I would have thought.

BUT, you have more creative license when writing them – especially if every now and then you want to put a give-away answer in there. Here are a few for an exam coming up:

1. The mechanism that Durkheim describes as constructing the beliefs and bonds of a given group is:
     e. Positive reinforcement in the form of limited distribution of chocolate.

2. Mr. Stroope pointed out that Hindu characteristics, beliefs, and actions are pervasive in India and that as a result:
     e. It is easy for McDonalds to blend in and sell hamburgers as long as a picture of Ganesha is present.

3. Central to the spread and success of the Reformation was:.
     c. Better farming practices that allowed more free time for reflection.
     e. People had always known there was something unlikable about the Catholic Church.

4. A schism, pertaining to religious bodies, is when:
     b. Cracks are found in the church’s foundation.
     e. A denomination stops using one Bible translation and begins using another.

It looks like I run out of 'could be true' answers towards the end of questions (most of those are the 'e' option...).  Also, I suppose I could actually defend some of those somewhat.  Ehhh, I hold the answer key and that is that.